[DOWNLOAD] "Lebert Joseph to the Rescue: A Positive Trickster in Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow (Critical Essay)" by Journal of Caribbean Literatures * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Lebert Joseph to the Rescue: A Positive Trickster in Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow (Critical Essay)
- Author : Journal of Caribbean Literatures
- Release Date : January 22, 2009
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 97 KB
Description
Traditionally, a trickster is one who makes a practice of crafty underhanded ingenuity to deceive and mislead others. Over time, this deceptive character has appeared in various forms in the folklore and mythology of many cultures and has adopted several characteristics, which enhance its meaning--ambiguity, shape-shifting, duplicity, erotic power, antisocial behavior, humor, and spirituality--precisely because the trickster represents issues of identity. American society often creates an identity crisis for members of its Black population. In Black women's writing, I define identity crisis as the psychological conflict that characters suffer through because they wish to escape memories of their past, deny their heritage, or have forgotten it altogether. When applying a trickster paradigm, the implications of Black women's fiction are far reaching because the trickster is used to deal with or comment on the identity crisis that American society causes for many members of its Black population. The trickster represents the struggle of the Black woman against this loss of identity. Taken in this context, the resilience of the trickster proves to be tantamount to the Black struggle because it is able to adapt to almost any given situation. As a negative force, the trickster symbolizes the identity crisis itself, disrupts life, and ultimately destroys itself. However, as a positive force, the trickster helps others survive by whatever means it has at its disposal. Questioning the trickster's meaning in Black women's literature becomes central to any understanding of survival because it answers the demands of multiple identity placed upon Black people in crisis.